Role of Employee Surveys in Building Better Workplaces

Employee surveys play a major role in the life-cycle of any company. When a company listens to its employees, the chances of making better decisions increases. You know which policies are actually working and what new modifications are required to be made in order for the company to function more efficiently. Right from the sourcing part to the exit interviews of the employees, surveys are essential to track, analyze, and improve performances. Needless to mention, the employees feel valued and the overall retention rate gets better too.

So how exactly do employee surveys help an organization? What is so good about them that highly-efficient multi-national companies make use of them? Let’s have a look at the factors that get positively impacted when employee surveys are put to place.

Employee Evaluation and Self-Assessment

Evaluating employees is not a simple task. It takes months and years to analyze the true potential and nature of a hire. Of course a candidate can be hired based on the rounds of interviews, but the true potential can be judged only at later stages. Collective feedback from the seniors and subordinates go a long way in determining the capabilities and nature of the employees so as to guide them and assign projects they are the most suitable for. They also help ascertain the effectiveness of managers and senior level professionals and what the junior-level employees think of them.

Another great reason to carry out employee surveys is self-assessment of the employees wherein they can rate their performances. The employees can answer numerous questions related to their professional journey. Whether they have met the goals set for them? Were the goals realistic and attainable?

Training and Development

Every company has a set of procedures to train and develop its employees and make them more resourceful. The IT is a dynamic industry, the trends of which change and update at regular intervals. It is very important for the IT personnel to keep track of the changes happening and stay updated with the latest trends. Feedback from the employees should be taken in order to assess if they need extra trainings or courses to develop their skill-set and work efficiently. There are times when higher education may help with the profile of a person. The need is to conduct regular surveys to check if the existing training and development programs are enough or added programs may be required.

Evaluating Job Satisfaction Level

Ensuring the staff members are satisfied with their job profiles and the company is of utter importance to any organization. Companies generally take proper steps in this regard, but often miss out on a very effective way to do so – employee surveys. They need to be asked how they would rate the work environment, the company, their colleagues, etc. Points like whether they are satisfied with their job roles, are they facing enough challenges that would boost their professional expertise, etc. need to be evaluated for good. If the employees are satisfied with the organization, they will provide positive feedback, for sure. Those comments can be further used as employee testimonials to be displayed proudly on the company website.

Employee Benefits and Salaries

More often than not, salaries and additional perquisites prove to be important factors for employees deciding to switch. Companies need to carry out surveys in order to check whether the employees feel they are compensated enough for their hard work and whether they are being appreciated for their efforts or not. Also, comparing the salaries with other company salaries can clear the picture if the demands made by your employees are justified. It is a general tendency for many people to get envious after knowing the perks that their friends receive, and the morale level drops down a little if they are not receiving similar perks and facilities. It is a good idea to find out what more are the employees at your company expecting in addition to their basic remunerations.

Views on Meetings Held

It is also important for a company to know what its employees think of the various meetings that are conducted monthly, quarterly, or annually. It is be a possibility that some meetings might not seem to be valuable to some members, and a survey makes sure the management knows their views regarding the meetings held.

In addition to having so many positive benefits, conducting employee surveys also increases employee engagement that is a great factor when it comes to retaining quality talent. When the employees are properly engaged at workplace, they tend to stay more energized and motivated. This leads to higher productivity, as much as 22%, as per a study conducted by the Gallup Organization. I believe we can make better use of employee surveys in organizations.

Areas that can be improved upon by using employee surveys:

To Get New Ideas for Business Functioning

For long, employee surveys have been used only to check on and work on the policies that have been implemented by the company, be it a leave policy, salary structure, dress-code, etc. Surveys can also be used to get new ideas in terms of business operations. For instance, an employee might have a fantastic idea for the company to tap into another vertical and expand, but s/he would/may not come up to a senior, or the decision-maker with the idea owing to the company hierarchy, policies, or maybe just because s/he may think the idea would never be implemented anyway. Anonymous surveys asking for such ideas may help businesses get new ideas and expand their horizons.

Comparing Departments

Employee surveys can be used to compare various departments in the same organization, or different branches of the same company located at different places. So, you would know if the employees at one location are performing better or worse as compared to the office at another location, and why. Thereafter, proper steps can be taken to reduce the inconsistencies and move towards a better management.

Retaining Talent

Collaborative feedback received from the employees may be helpful in conducting exit interviews and retaining quality talent in the company. It would substantially reduce the cost and efforts needed for new acquisitions.

Avoiding Harassment and Discrimination

Discrimination of any kind is disgraceful to an organization, be it a caste-based, gender-based, or position-based way of discriminating. Companies do think about these factors and take precautions to avoid them, but a few cases do slip in at times. Similar was the case with Nike where many women felt discriminated and often complained of harassment by their male counterparts, but none of the complaints leading to any action fruitful. Then they decided to carry out a survey themselves, and the results were shocking. Most of the women reported being subjected to harassment. The result, many top level-executives had to voluntarily resign.

Interview Experience

Interview experience is also a major factor behind candidates deciding to work, or not to work for your company. Prospective employees judge your company based upon their interview experiences and if that process hasn’t been pleasant for them, the brand image is at stake. Many a time, the HR team is at fault behind their bitter experience during the interview and this is an area that needs to be addressed at the earliest. Conducting surveys for the candidates who are done with their interviews is a way to check on this and make the interview process smoother for the future.

Being a technology-based recruitment agency, we at Hexagon employ the services of employee surveys in order to check for deficiencies in the recruitment procedure, or the company, as a whole, and work on the feedback received to move towards making things better. Are you making use of surveys in your organization? Do you have a story to tell where a survey had a positive effect on your employees or the company? Do let us know!